In the middle of May we went with our friends Aldona and Witek on the Magic Bus tour through the San Francisco's '50s, '60s and '70s.
The tour was interesting, even though it was very different from what I had expected it to be. I thought that the Magic Bus would be a hippie bus from the '60s on which we would relive the "summer of love" be listening to and singing along the songs from that era. However, that was only a small part of the tour. It seemed to me that every single time that we started relaxing and getting into the good mood stimulated by the songs of the '60s and '70s, the screens on the bus' windows would remind us about the dark side of those times: war in Vietnam, assassinations of the Kennedys, King, Moscone, Milk and John Lennon. If you ask me, I would enjoy the tour much more if the gloomy events were given less prominence, and if we were allowed to sing more.
Still, I thought the tour was pretty good and well done. As you can see in the photos below, on the bus the audience/passengers sit facing side windows, which can be converted into the projection screens. As the bus rolled over various neighborhoods of San Francisco (Chinatown, North Beach, Financial District, Haight-Ashbury, and Golden Gate Park), the projection screens would roll up to reveal the beauty of the city and to let us have a look at the places that were just mentioned on the documentary. A pretty cool concept!
The Magic Bus:
Inside the bus:
Summer of Love:
If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair:
Aldonka and Witek in front of the bus:
And in front of the heart of San Francisco:
The tour was interesting, even though it was very different from what I had expected it to be. I thought that the Magic Bus would be a hippie bus from the '60s on which we would relive the "summer of love" be listening to and singing along the songs from that era. However, that was only a small part of the tour. It seemed to me that every single time that we started relaxing and getting into the good mood stimulated by the songs of the '60s and '70s, the screens on the bus' windows would remind us about the dark side of those times: war in Vietnam, assassinations of the Kennedys, King, Moscone, Milk and John Lennon. If you ask me, I would enjoy the tour much more if the gloomy events were given less prominence, and if we were allowed to sing more.
Still, I thought the tour was pretty good and well done. As you can see in the photos below, on the bus the audience/passengers sit facing side windows, which can be converted into the projection screens. As the bus rolled over various neighborhoods of San Francisco (Chinatown, North Beach, Financial District, Haight-Ashbury, and Golden Gate Park), the projection screens would roll up to reveal the beauty of the city and to let us have a look at the places that were just mentioned on the documentary. A pretty cool concept!
The Magic Bus:
Inside the bus:
Summer of Love:
If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair:
Aldonka and Witek in front of the bus:
And in front of the heart of San Francisco:
